


The Kids' Table

by spacekc929



Series: Dennie's Rules for Wade [4]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Aftercare, Age Difference, Anxiety, Belting, Bratting, Corporal Punishment, Crying, Daddy Kink, Daddy/boy relationship, Discipline, Frotting, Hair Pulling, Hickeys, Insecurity, M/M, Obedience, Oral Sex, Paddling, Possessive Behavior, Power Exchange, Rough Sex, supportive friends, washing mouth out with soap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:00:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25921723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacekc929/pseuds/spacekc929
Summary: The boy makes some new friends, one of whom gives him a hot idea about how to keep his relationship with Daddy fresh and spicy. Daddy isn’t so pleased when the boy carries out that idea without talking to him about it first, though.
Relationships: Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Series: Dennie's Rules for Wade [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1861339
Comments: 7
Kudos: 66





	The Kids' Table

It was now or never.

“Uh, Mr. Henderson? Can you please pass the potatoes?”

Dennie looked up from his plate with a confused expression. His fork was halfway to his mouth—dear Lord, he’d mixed the veggies and meat into one bite again, he was always doing that, it was so disgusting—

“Excuse me?”

“I said, can you pass the potatoes?” Wade barely managed to keep a little shake out of his voice. “Please?”

Dennie set down his fork. He did not pass the potatoes. “Wade, do you realize you broke a Rule just now?”

It was all Wade could do not to break down and admit: ‘Of course I know! That’s the entire point!’

“Uh… what Rule?” Wade mumbled, pushing the roasted broccoli to and fro on his plate. Man, Dennie was good at roasting vegetables. If only Wade wasn’t too nauseated to actually eat them.

“Rule #5. You called me Mr. Henderson. Damn. Did you not even realize it? That worries me, sweetheart. I thought we’d broken this habit.”

The Kids—or at least, one particular Kid—had promised him this would be fun. Sure. This was about as fun as taking the SAT, or perhaps waking up at 4am to go Black Friday shopping. Wade kind of wished he could rewind and restart the whole past thirty seconds or so and forget all about this awful idea. “Oh! Oh, Dennie, I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.”

“You know that won’t cut it. Go get a fresh bar of soap from the bathroom.”

It was a testament to how comfortable Wade was getting with Dennie that, despite the direct order, he hesitated for just a second. “Um. Right… now?” They’d just started eating! Like two minutes ago!

“Yes. Right now.” Dennie’s tone brooked no argument. Wade shot up from the chair and stumbled to the bathroom. Behind the toilet in the little wooden cupboard was the ‘soap shelf’: Dennie stocked individually wrapped bars of soap there that he frequently employed to discipline Wade for lesser infractions, such as calling Dennie by a formal title. It was a testament to Dennie’s care for Wade’s health that he always used a fresh bar of soap for this punishment. (The problem, though, was what to do with each new bar once it was opened and used. There just wasn’t enough room in the shower for _all_ the recycled punishment soaps…)

Wade dragged his feet coming back to Dennie’s kitchen. It really had been some time since he’d broken Rule #5, and Wade didn’t feel so hot about giving Dennie the impression that his ‘Mr. Henderson’ habit had sprung back up out of nowhere. It was just that Rule #5 was the easiest one to break on command…

“Give it here.”

Wade shuffled to the front of Dennie’s chair and stood in the spot between Dennie’s knees where Dennie was imperiously pointing. Wade meekly handed over the new bar of soap, still in its packaging. Dennie swiftly opened it and, without equivocation, hooked Wade’s bottom teeth with two sure fingers and slid the soap inside. “Bite down, sweetheart.”

Wade obeyed, of course. Dennie never needed to rub the bar on Wade’s tongue or stick his fingers in Wade’s mouth; as long as Wade closed his mouth, his saliva naturally did all the work. “Don’t swallow,” Dennie reminded him, attentive as always. It could cause intestinal problems if he ingested it. Tears pricked Wade’s eyes—the gut-wrenching taste of a fresh Ivory never got better, no matter how many times he did this. Dennie didn’t let Wade move from between his knees—rather, he grabbed each of Wade’s hands and held onto him. It was just like Dennie not to make Wade go through any punishment alone.

“Alright. You’re done,” Dennie finally said after an interminable three minutes or so.

Wade looked down into Dennie’s eyes and waited for his command.

“Go ahead and take that out and rinse your mouth in the bathroom, dearest.”

Wade wasted no time in obeying. The soap went with the other fifteen strays into the shower stall. (Maybe it was time for them to just give up and start throwing the used bars away. Or maybe they could do some sort of craft project?) Wade then spent several minutes trying to rinse the sour taste out of his mouth with water, but the soapy residue tenaciously lingered.

Wade stared at himself in the mirror for a minute and tried to get his emotions under control. He felt sorry for himself: now his food was cold and even if it wasn’t, it would taste disgusting anyways. Even worse, Dennie was disappointed in him. But no, that wasn’t quite right: Dennie was never disappointed when Wade honestly broke a Rule. It’s that Wade knew Dennie _should be_ disappointed, and would be if Wade ever admitted to his abominable, unfathomable decision to break a Rule _on purpose_.

Wade was steeling himself to put on a cheerful façade when Dennie knocked on the bathroom door. “Wade? Honey? I forgot to tell you to brush your teeth and use mouthwash so that you can finish your meal.”

Christ. Dennie was always so thoughtful. It only made Wade feel worse. Wade brushed his teeth with one of the toothbrushes he kept at Dennie’s house and rinsed with mouthwash, and though neither completely expelled the soapy aftertaste, it was far more muted. Eating would be tolerable. Not that Wade deserved that comfort.

Wade straggled back into the kitchen, but he stopped dead in his tracks at his seat: his plate was gone. Dennie had never taken his food away before. Did… did Dennie know what Wade had done? Was this how purposefully disobedient brats got punished?

“Sweetheart, stop acting like I’ve committed a human rights violation! I’m just heating your plate back up. Can’t you hear the microwave?”

Oh, God. All of this was too much. Dennie, his sweet, kind, ever considerate, ever compassionate Dennie, was always prioritizing Wade’s needs—even when Wade was a total fuck-up who wasn’t worthy of any of it. Wade broke into helpless sobs. “I’m—so sorry—”

Everything was sort of a blur for a few minutes. Dennie ushered him into the living room, tucked Wade underneath his arm on the couch, and hummed and shhhed and stroked Wade’s hair so gently in the way that normally soothed him but today, just seemed to amplify Wade’s sense of failure. “It’s okay, my dearest. I didn’t mean to suggest that you should be ashamed that this habit isn’t broken yet. It just means you and I have more work to do together. You don’t need to be sorry. You’re doing so well, love.”

The words bounced off Wade’s mental shields like tennis balls off a concrete slab—they were inaccurate and not addressing the right crime, so they didn’t help, at all. Wade clutched Dennie’s shirt and tried to bring his weeping under control on his own. He couldn’t believe this was so hard. Could he really manage to disobey, over and over again, multiple times per week, for the rest of his life?

***

It was Maggie who’d made Wade talk to The Kids in the first place, so Wade blamed her entirely for his unfortunate acquaintance with the person responsible for this whole mess: Jarahn Osborne. Wade could happily have spent every night at the bar sitting unobtrusively on Dennie’s barstool, watching his man mix drinks and open and close tabs and sing along to shitty pop music on Eighties Night, but no. One day Maggie had to come out from the back office and slide her arm around Wade’s shoulder and say, “Won’t your Daddy let you come play with us just this once?”

Too many loaded statements in that sentence to respond to. “ _Let_ me…? He’s not my… Who is ‘us’?”

“The Kids!”

The Kids—Frau Lick’s unofficial submissive support group, The Kids were a loose-knit network of bottom-type folks who liked spending time together, laughing, telling jokes, having fun, etc. Wade didn’t really care much for “fun”; all the Kids were so outgoing and talkative. Every time Wade had tried to hang out with them, he’d left exhausted and stressed out. (And it wasn’t like any of The Kids liked him anyways. Wade knew they all thought he got around too much.)

Tonight, there were just a few people at The Kids’ table: an extreme masochist, Jenna, a couple service submissives, Carly and Rocko, and a new man that Wade didn’t recognize. And apparently Maggie would be there too. “Don’t you have to work?” Wade weakly retorted.

“Delilah said I could come have fun for a few minutes. And you need to relax too.”

Wade shook his head. “Maggie, I really don’t think—”

“I’ll ask for you. HENDERSON!”

Dennie wandered over from the other end of the bar. “Good God Maggie, that was right in my ear,” Wade complained as Dennie reached across and ruffled his hair. Ever since Wade had admitted he loved to have his hair pulled, Dennie had been touching it whenever he got the chance…

“Get your hands off him,” Dennie ordered Maggie cheerfully.

She stuck her tongue out but, obediently, removed her arm from Wade’s back. She slipped onto the adjacent barstool and flipped her long blonde hair over her shoulder. “Dennie, you’ve got to let your boy have some fun! Let him let _loose_ once in a while!”

Dennie raised his eyebrow. “What makes you think I’m stopping him from having fun?”

“Um, maybe because he spends every single night he’s here moping around on this barstool, mooning over you like an overly-obedient puppy dog?”

Wade flushed hot, embarrassed. He liked the quiet calm of Dennie’s barstool: being close to Dennie, having Dennie within his sight, reading and re-reading his seat placard— _‘reserved for Dennie’s Wade_.’ This was a comfortable place; a safe place.

The Kids’ table was decidedly _not_.

Dennie rolled his eyes. “Maggie, go hang out with your friends already. I’ll send Wade over in a bit.”

Maggie flounced away while Wade turned on Dennie with a doleful look. “What do you mean, you’ll send me over? Don’t you want me here?” He couldn’t suppress the dispirited, petulant edge from his voice.

Dennie didn’t look annoyed by Wade’s childishness, though. He just continued rubbing soft circles into Wade’s scalp. “Sweetheart, you know I love it when you’re here. But you do spend an awful lot of time sitting here in silence while I’m working. I think you might have fun if you spent more time talking to people.”

“You’re wrong. I won’t have any fun at all,” Wade grumped back, crossing his arms and looking off towards the wall.

“Well that’s tough, because I’m still telling you to go sit with them for a bit, and you’ll do as I say, won’t you dear?”

“You’re _ordering_ me to socialize?” Wade cried, feeling no small amount of betrayal.

“Yes, dearest. Maggie’s right. Go over now and stay there for… let’s say, thirty minutes at minimum.”

“But what if I have to use the bathroom?”

“Wade.” Dennie tugged a bit more forcefully on his hair. A clear warning shot across the bow: Wade’s defiance was nearing a Rule #1 violation. “Are you supposed to argue with me? Or are you supposed to do just as I say?”

“I’m supposed to do just as you say,” Wade whispered back. “J-just thirty minutes?”

“Yes.” Dennie pressed a little kiss into Wade’s forehead. “And if you have to use the bathroom, hold it until thirty minutes have passed.”

For the first time, Wade felt just a little resentful of Dennie’s heavy-handedness. But even through his frustration, a little spark of contentment flickered: everything would be okay in the end if Wade did as he was told. Wade _liked_ doing what he was told; that’s why, on his Limits document, he’d put ‘following orders’ into the ‘Like/Love’ category—because it always felt good to give in. And especially to Dennie, who’d never steered him wrong yet. “Okay, sir,” he capitulated. “Just… save my seat?”

“I always will.”

Exactly forty-eight seconds later, Wade slouched into the empty chair between Maggie and Jenna at The Kids’ table. “Wade’s Daddy finally let him go,” Maggie said far too loudly to the rest of The Kids.

Jenna, Carly, and Rocko all said something generic in response—“Hi” or “Good to see you” or some such thing, but they were all talking at once so Wade couldn’t really tell what all they said. “And this is Jarahn,” Maggie said, pointing to the small, snow-pale man across the table that Wade hadn’t recognized. “He just moved here from New York City. The Big Apple!”

“So you’re the famous Wade,” Jarahn said with a simpering little smirk. Wade kind of disfavored him already.

“I’m not famous…” Wade muttered.

“You bagged that hot bartender Daddy, so I’d say that makes you fairly illustrious.”

The others laughed as a hot, angry blush overtook Wade’s cheeks. “Don’t talk about him like that,” he tried to say, but his voice was too soft, so no one heard him.

The Kids jumped back into the middle of their conversation: a charged debate about the pros and cons of leather versus plastic floggers. Wade stared down at the table, trying to tune it out. Dennie didn’t even own a flogger, so Wade really didn’t give a fuck.

“Hey Wade.” Wade turned his head to see Jenna, who was a short, stocky black woman, giving him a friendly smile. Her innocent appearance was a bit of a ruse: Wade had seen someone whip her with literal barbed wire before.

“Hi, Jenna,” he mumbled back.

“How are you? I haven’t talked to you in a while. I’m so happy to see that you and Dennie are getting along so well. We’d all been hoping you two would finally hit it off.”

Wade furrowed his brows. Was this some sort of veiled insult? Did everyone actually wish he wasn’t sullying Dennie with his sluttiness? “Um… thanks?”

Jenna chuckled a bit, seeming not to notice or mind Wade’s paranoid reticence. “I’ve got a new Domme now too. Her name’s Lia. She and I are going to do a flogging scene tonight, if you’re interested in watching. That’s why we’re all talking about floggers.”

Wade shook his head emphatically before he could consider how rude that might look. “Sorry, uh, it’s just… I’m not really…”

“No, don’t be sorry. Flogging is _not_ everyone’s thing. I’d seen you getting caned downstairs before, so I thought you liked impact scenes.”

“Not really,” Wade admitted. “It’s nothing personal. I’m just not really into pain. Or watching others get hurt.”

“Fair enough. Sometimes you have to try something a few times to figure out you hate it,” Jenna commented with a wry grin.

Sure, Wade thought. Or sometimes you have to try _everything_ a whole bunch of times to figure out you don’t like any of it. “But I hope you have fun,” Wade added hesitantly.

“Oh, we will. She’s bringing my favorite flogger—a leather one,” Jenna said with a side-eyed glance at Rocko, who had been strenuously advocating the plastic. “Now remind me—you’re a paralegal, right?”

They talked about that for a few minutes. Lia had been a paralegal too, but then she decided to go to law school. “As of a few months ago, she’s officially an ‘Esquire’,” Jenna said, sounding very proud. “She does some sort of intellectual property thing. You know, copyrights and shit. Wayyy out of my wheelhouse.”

“My law firm does a bit of that too. I don’t really get it either, but we’ve had some really interesting cases…”

Then Maggie overheard, and jumped in with a funny story she’d read online about an expired patent, and Carly laughed because she’d read that article too, and wait, did any of you guys see that funny skit by the comedian that also was about a patent, or was it a trademark?, and weirdly enough Wade _had_ seen that, so he made some comment about it that made Carly laugh again, and the conversation wended and wound like that until Lia finally arrived to take Jenna away for their scene. Wade was shocked when he looked up at the clock to see that two hours had passed! Maggie looked a little chagrined too. “I’ve been gone too long,” Maggie admitted. “Delilah’s gonna be pissed. I’m supposed to be putting in a stock order tonight.”

“I, uh… I need to get back to Dennie too,” Wade said shakily, unwilling to stay at this table now that both Jenna and Maggie were leaving.

“Thanks for coming over, Wade! It’s so great to get a chance to talk to you,” Carly said with a grin. Rocko and Jarahn both smiled and waved too.

“Oh. Um. Thanks for uh, letting me sit with you,” Wade mumbled, giving them a small wave in return.

“No need to thank us—you’re always welcome!”

Maggie and Wade parted ways at Dennie’s barstool with a brief hug. Then Wade moved his placard from the stool to the bar and waited for Dennie to notice he’d come back. It didn’t take long; in fact, it seemed like Dennie may have been watching him all along. Dennie leaned over the bar to plant a kiss on Wade’s lips and lightly caress his cheek.

Wade anticipated it with some stoicism: the ‘I told you so’ or the sly, ‘Looks like someone had fun after all,’ or even just silence with a knowing, superior smirk. His parents would have done any or all of those things. But Dennie didn’t. Dennie just smiled at Wade in the way he always did when Wade sat down at his stool and said, “You obeyed me so well, darling.”

And those words were perfect. So utterly flawless in a way that Wade could never have explained. “It, um. It wasn’t so bad,” Wade admitted, leaning into Dennie’s touch a bit shyly. “I forgot how nice Jenna is.”

“She’s got a good head on her shoulders,” Dennie affirmed. Then he snaked his hand up from Wade’s cheek, past his temple, and threaded his large, life-roughened fingers into Wade’s curls. He tugged—gently, but with a hint of promise. “I think you deserve a reward tonight, my sweet. Would you like that?”

Wade nodded eagerly.

***

So Dennie kept making him hang out with The Kids. Not every night—sometimes Wade didn’t come to Frau Lick at all, and sometimes he was so tired from work that he just wanted to sit in stillness, but Dennie had some sort of sixth sense for when Wade could be pushed. It was harder on the more crowded nights, when Wade couldn’t help but feel surplus to requirement at The Kids’ table. And even though he spent more time with these people now, Wade still wasn’t sure exactly what he was supposed to talk to them about. His sex life was so much more mundane in comparison to theirs—was he really supposed to take the centerstage and talk about how Dennie sometimes put soap in his mouth for a few minutes, in between one sub’s story about getting cut open with Japanese knives and another sub’s detailed explanation of having his balls crushed with a stiletto heel? And anyway, whenever any of them asked about Dennie it was hard not to growl and extend his claws and scream, ‘He’s mine! Don’t talk about him!’

But he kept going to sit with them, because Dennie kept ordering him to, and Dennie’s pleased expression when he was obedient more than made up for any unpleasantness associated with trying to spend time with other people.

(And really, they weren’t that bad.)

Soon enough, the annual ‘Are You Kidding?’ Barbecue was upon them, and Maggie—the traitor!—handed the flyer straight to Dennie and said, “Make your boy come to this!” before bouncing back to the office.

“S-sorry,” Wade murmured, wringing his hands together on top of the bar. “It’s sort of a ‘sub-types-only’ kind of thing. I wasn’t planning on going,” Wade added hopefully.

“It looks like it’ll be fun,” Dennie said, leaning on his elbows on the bar and perusing the flyer. “Hamburgers, hot dogs, veggie burgers. Cornhole. A three-legged race. Look, they’re even doing a benefit raffle.”

“It’s going to be really hot,” Wade moaned back, aware that he sounded unattractively juvenile but not much able to control it. “And it’s Saturday. I like spending Saturdays with you.”

Dennie had Thursdays and Fridays off, so Friday night/Saturday morning was the only time of the week that neither of them had to be at work the night before or get out of bed the following morning by any particular time. “We can still spend Saturday together,” Dennie countered. “You only need to make an appearance for an hour.”

“A _whole_ hour?”

Dennie raised his eyebrow. “Am I detecting a hint of defiance in your tone, my sweet little introvert?”

“No, I was just trying to clarify,” Wade mumbled.

“Good. Because you’re going.”

So on a scorching, humid Saturday at the end of August, Wade donned his Portugal jersey, a pair of jean shorts, and his comfy pair of Chacos, and, with a potluck dish in hand, waved miserably at Dennie’s silver Subaru Forester as it abandoned him in the parking area of Riverfront Park. Wade was under strict orders to text Dennie when he was ready for Dennie to pick him up—“and, my dear, you may not text me one minute before 2:00pm.”

Wade was starting to think Dennie was a sadist who’d been hiding his true colors all this time.

“Wade! Over here!” Maggie yelled as Wade crossed the grass to the picnic area. Lots of people had already arrived—several of whom Wade recognized, and some Wade didn’t. Maggie was organizing all the food as Wade set his homemade apple pie down near the dessert section.

“Anything I can do to help, Maggie?” he asked politely.

“Don’t even try, killer. I’ve been warned by your Daddy not to let you, under any circumstances, ‘volunteer to help.’”

Okay, fine, so Wade had hoped that he might avoid talking to anyone by doing some hard labor… “You’re supposed to be on my side, not his,” he carped.

“There’s no sides here, baby. Look, Jenna and Carly are over by the dunk tank—Harry’s about to get dunked. I bet you’d love to see that!”

Harry was Dennie’s ex-boy, so yeah, Wade kind of did want to see that.

And alright, once he started talking to Jenna and Carly, things became a little easier. Seeing Harry get drenched really lifted his spirits, and then he and Jenna paired off against Carly and Rocko in the three-legged race, and they won!, so Jenna and Wade got a free ice cream cone each, and then Maggie conned Wade into buying her a raffle ticket, and when she won the raffle she gave Wade some of the chocolate in the prize bucket, and before he even knew what had happened, it was 4:00pm—and he didn’t even want to leave yet!

Wade grabbed a sparkling water from the cooler and sat down at one of the picnic tables to rest his legs for a moment, wondering if he should text Dennie now. Dennie didn’t work until 6:30, so he didn’t really _need_ to text him until 5:00… or maybe 5:30…

“Hey, this seat taken?”

Wade looked up, startled. Jarahn had snuck up on him—he was holding a bottled water and a plate with some macaroni salad and a slice of Wade’s pie. He looked at the seat across from Wade expectantly.

Wade wished it was socially appropriate to say, ‘Leave me alone,’ but instead he said, “Oh go ahead, please,” and gestured Jarahn to the empty seat.

Jarahn sat and immediately began to eat. “Good apple pie,” Jarahn remarked with his mouth full.

“Uh, yeah. Thanks.”

“Oh, you made it?” Wade seriously doubted Jarahn had been ignorant of that fact, but… oh, dear God, he was mixing the macaroni and the pie into one bite! No! Disgusting!! “It’s really good. I didn’t know you baked.”

“Uh, it’s sort of, a little bit of a side hobby I guess,” Wade murmured, trying not to vomit.

Jarahn finally finished eating, thank the Lord because that had been almost too much for Wade to handle, and he washed his food down with a big gulp of water.

“Um, so, how do you like it here?” Wade asked, for want of anything important to say. “The Midwest must not be nearly as exciting as NYC.”

“Ain’t that the truth.”

Ouch.

“But I don’t mind it here. It’s quaint. I moved here for work. With my promotion and the cost of living decrease, I’m living like a king now!”

Wade really, truly didn’t care.

“Are you from around here?” Jarahn asked.

“Not really. My family all lives in Texas.”

“Aha. I thought I heard a hint of an accent.”

Wade shrugged. He’d tried to eradicate his twang, but it still rose to the surface sometimes—especially when he was stressed or nervous, like right at this second.

Jarahn leaned over the picnic table conspiratorially. His black hair was shiny from sunlight, but the rest of his skin was so pale that he looked almost like a corpse. Wade hoped he’d put on sunscreen. “So I’ve got a question for you. How long have you and Mr. Beefcake been a thing?”

Wade tried his best to glare, ( _don’t talk about him you fucking asshole_ ), but he’d never had a very intimidating face, so it probably came across more like he was constipated. “About eight months or so,” Wade groused back.

“Oh wow. That’s a pretty tenuous time in a Daddy/boy relationship, huh?”

“He’s not my… wait, what are you talking about?”

“Oh, honey.” Jarahn sat back up straight, and his face had a strangely sympathetic expression that didn’t mesh well with his necrotic features. “Take it from me. I dated all sorts of Daddies in the City. Let me guess: he has a set of ‘rules’ for you to follow, doesn’t he?”

“Well, yeah.”

“And you’ve gotten pretty good at following them by now, right?”

Wade nodded with an unconcealed bit of pride.

“Yeah, honey, no. That’s not something to be happy about.”

Wade blinked—not quite able to comprehend Jarahn’s audacity at coming over, sitting with him, and insulting his relationship. “Who are you to say—”

“Just listen for a second.” All of Jarahn’s pretension had disappeared; he looked genuinely worried. “All the subs have been telling me that the bartender guy is your first Daddy, and I’ve gathered that there aren’t many Daddies or boys who come to this bar, so I guess you don’t know. But let me tell you, this is about the time of _every_ Daddy/boy relationship when Daddies start getting bored. It all becomes too easy—the boy is trained, and he wants to please, so he’s usually pretty good. But the thing is that Daddies _like_ punishing their boys. That’s why they’re Daddies. Do you see what I’m saying?”

“You’re saying… I shouldn’t be following the Rules?” Wade clarified tentatively.

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.” At Wade’s astonished look, Jarahn held up two hands in the ‘surrender’ position. “Look, I don’t know your man from Adam. Obviously you’re in the best position to judge what he wants. But in my experience, all Daddies are the same. They want a little spice; a little pizazz. It’s the boy’s responsibility to figure out the appropriate balance between too obedient and not obedient enough to keep his Daddy happy. Trust me, Wade—I’m pretty experienced in this area.”

“I… but that doesn’t make sense. He’s told me he wants me to follow the Rules. I get in big trouble when I don’t!”

The sneaky little smirk came back. “But don’t you see? He likes it when you’re in trouble. That’s what’s fun about disobeying.”

Wade wasn’t sure if that really matched his experience. Dennie was never mad about punishing him, but it didn’t seem like he _liked_ it—it more seemed like he did it because he knew Wade wanted and needed it. “Are you sure? How often am I supposed to be getting in trouble? Maybe I already break the Rules enough for him.”

“Hm…” Jarahn tapped his finger on his chin, looking thoughtful. “It’s definitely not a set-in-stone sort of figure, and it depends on his personality to some extent. But I’d say you should be aiming for getting in trouble at least a couple times per week.”

“A couple times _per week_?!”

“Well, yeah. It’s a similar concept to sex—a good relationship requires sex at least four to five times per week, doesn’t it? For discipline relationships, punishment at least twice a week seems to be the sweet spot. Maybe a little more, maybe a little less.”

Oh dear Lord. Maybe Jarahn was a weirdo, but he sounded really damn sure of himself, and he had been a boy in NYC, where there were millions of Daddies. “Um—ah—you know, Dennie’s about to pick me up, so I think I oughta…” Wade stood up and fumbled with his phone to send his text to Dennie, wanting to escape.

“Oh right, right. Daddy’s orders. Just think about what I’ve said. One boy to another.” Jarahn winked; his eyelashes were weirdly long. Wade’s stomach curdled. He sped to the parking area as fast as he could.

***

Over the week after the picnic, Wade tried to ignore Jarahn’s ‘advice.’ It just didn’t make sense—Dennie’s first Rule was to always obey Dennie’s Rules! Certainly it couldn’t be true that Dennie also somehow wanted him to disobey just to keep things fun.

But despite his efforts to forget the whole thing, Jarahn’s idea had lodged itself into Wade’s brain. Wade really had made leaps and bounds in his ability to follow Dennie’s Rules lately; in fact, he hadn’t even been punished since well before the barbecue—weeks and weeks ago. Weeks and weeks, then, of Wade and Dennie just… spending time together. Eating dinner; talking at the bar; strolling through the park. Jarahn’s phrasing haunted him: Dennie might want more ‘spice’ and ‘pizazz’ than Wade was currently offering. Hell, wasn’t their relationship basically a vanilla relationship if Wade never got in trouble? 

So Wade gave in to the horrible idea and tried the ‘Mr. Henderson’ experiment. That had felt like swallowing a box of nails, but it had given Dennie the chance to really be a Dom, hadn’t it? Dennie had gotten to correct Wade’s mistake, and then they’d sat on the couch together, Dennie murmuring words of comfort that he thought were bringing them closer together. All in all, Wade had to concede that Jarahn’s suggestion made a lot of sense, at least if Wade was looking at this from the perspective of pleasing Dennie.

( _But it pleases Dennie when I follow the Rules too…?_ )

Wade tried the purposeful disobedience thing again about a week later when he thought an opportunity arose, but unfortunately he didn’t exactly achieve his desired result. It was another afternoon in their plain, vanilla relationship, the two of them sitting on opposite ends of the couch on their phones after having eaten takeout for lunch. Up until Jarahn, Wade had found these domestic moments comforting and simple, but now it concerned him—Dennie must think this was so boring.

So when Dennie looked up from his phone and asked, “Do you mind passing me the remote, dearest?” Wade knew he shouldn’t pass up the chance for some spontaneous, low-key defiance. He’d actually already let go of his own phone and began to reach for the remote, but he drew his hand back and instead muttered, “Um, I’m kinda busy right now.”

“You’re… busy.” Dennie sounded skeptical. “Sitting there, on the couch, browsing the news on your phone, you’re too busy to take a half a second to toss me the remote that’s sitting right there next to you.”

It all sounded so silly and frivolous when Dennie put it that way. Wade was about to reverse course entirely—‘just a little joke, honey!’—but Jarahn’s warning bells flashed in his brain. Dennie liked punishing him, didn’t he? He’d like it if Wade was a little defiant, probably. So Wade just answered, “Yup.”

“Darling…” Dennie’s voice took on a warning inflection, the kind that chilled Wade to the bone and generally compelled his immediate compliance. Wade fought all his natural impulses demanding him to give in: he couldn’t succumb!

“I just don’t see why I should have to stop what I’m doing to cater to your whims when you’re perfectly capable of walking two steps to get the remote yourself. I’m not your maid.”

Well, that had felt sickening to say. Wade didn’t even know where any of that sassy language had come from. He didn’t believe it at all; Dennie wasn’t some kind of cruel taskmaster who treated his sub like a servant.

Apparently Dennie felt hurt by his thoughtless words too. He stood up, walked the two steps to grab the remote, then retreated back to the other end of the couch without saying a word. Wade wanted to crawl into a hole and die. This wasn’t going as planned, and it turned out this had been a bad idea; he needed to go back in time and take it all back!

“Dennie, wait, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“I don’t have a Rule requiring you to show me respect because thus far, you’ve given me no reason to implement one. I’d think about that the next time you’re tempted to take that kind of tone with me.” There was an icy edge to Dennie’s voice that Wade had never heard before, least of all directed at _him._

“Please, I’m sorry—”

“Stop apologizing. You didn’t break any Rules. You’re not in trouble. It’s behind us.” Dennie flicked on the TV and began flipping through the channels, pointedly not looking at him.

Wade swiftly shut his mouth. He dropped his hands limply into his lap, but then a hot wetness welled up behind his eyes that he needed to hide because otherwise he’d look like a needy child begging for comfort when he least deserved it. He drew his legs up so he could wrap his arms around his knees and bury his face there. Wade’s shoulders shook. Dennie was mad at him. Dennie hated him now. Dennie was probably going to break up with him because Wade was an ungrateful, horrid little—

“Sweetheart…”

Wade had been trying not to make any noise, but a startled little snivel gurgled out of him at the endearment, and that broke the dam. “I’m sorry,” he wept openly, clamping his arms painfully tight around his kneecaps. Then he realized he’d disobeyed a direct order without even meaning to, and even more sobs abounded. “I shouldn’t have apologized again,” he moaned tearfully. “I’ll go get the paddle.”

“No, darling, I’m not going to paddle you—”

That just made Wade cry harder. It was over now, wasn’t it? Wade had fucked it all up. Dennie didn’t even think he was worth punishing anymore. How could he have been so stupid? Why hadn’t he stopped while he was ahead?

The cushion next to him dipped. Wade tried to curl away into the sofa arm, but Dennie didn’t let him: he wrapped one arm around the back of Wade’s shoulders and, with the other, tilted Wade’s head up and away from his knees. “My darling, I was too harsh. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“I was horrible. I was so rude. And then I apologized after you told me not to. I’m sor—” Wade cut himself off. So stupid! Completely useless! He couldn’t be obedient even when he knew exactly what he was supposed to do!

“I’m cancelling that order, since it’s clearly giving you too much anxiety to follow it right now. Darling, I just want to understand what made you snap at me like that before. That’s never happened before. Did something happen at work? Or something else? Have I done something to make you feel neglected or uncared for?”

“No, no, you haven’t done anything, I’m just stupid, I should go home, you must be so fed up with me—”

“Wade!” Wade’s eyes jerked up and Dennie’s green ones were blazing. “You know how I feel about you putting words into my mouth. I haven’t said I’m fed up with you, or that you should go home, or that you’re stupid. So what does that mean?”

Wade bit his bottom lip and sucked in a breath before responding, quietly, “That you don’t think those things.”

“Exactly right.” Dennie pulled Wade into his chest, gently but firmly rearranging their positions so that Wade’s feet were back on the floor and his head tucked comfortably in the crook of Dennie’s neck. Dennie’s hand skated up and down Wade’s bicep in a steady, succoring rhythm. “There now. You’re okay. We’re okay.”

“Are we?” Wade blurted out without meaning to.

“Why wouldn’t we be? Do you know something I should?”

This was the moment. The perfect chance to confess that all of this was Jarahn Osborne’s stupid fault. But something held him back; because he hadn’t really disobeyed like Jarahn said he should, had he? Dennie hadn’t actually given any direct orders. Wade had just been a rude little shit for no reason after Dennie made a very reasonable request. No matter how much Daddies might want ‘spice’ and ‘pizazz,’ none of them wanted blatant disrespect. So this wasn’t Jarahn’s fault; it was Wade’s. He hadn’t done what he was supposed to do—he hadn’t fulfilled his responsibility as a boy to strike the appropriate balance.

“N-no, sir,” Wade finally answered. “I must just be having an off day.” Oh goody, a Rule #4 violation. “I’m really sorry I was so horrible.” And a Rule #6 violation too, for not immediately fessing up to the Rule #4 issue. A two-fer in as many seconds. What a good boy Wade was.

“I’m sorry you’re having an off day. That doesn’t make it okay to snap at me like that, but I understand and I forgive you. I was too curt with you as well; I should have considered that you might be having a bad day and responded more kindly.

“But we need to talk about how you reacted to what was, at worst, a very minor disagreement. Sweetheart, I’m not going to get fed up with you or send you away because you said something in a rude tone of voice or disobeyed a single order. It breaks my heart that you think I could treat you so callously. And you know better, don’t you? This is a classic Rule #2 issue: responding to mandates that I haven’t set out for you, hearing things that I ‘said’ that I never actually said because you made them up in your own head. And you know what happens when you break Rule #2.”

A paddling. Rule #2 was always a paddling. “I understand,” Wade whispered.

“Do you? Tell me, in your own words, why I’m going to paddle you.”

 _Because I’m a completely useless idiot who can’t seem to figure out how to just be a fun boy who disobeys at the right times._ “I thought you h-hated me, even though you didn’t say so, and I was stupid to think you’d hate me over something so minor—”

“Stop with the negative self-talk this instant, boy.”

Dennie’s autocratic tone cut through some of the bullshit in Wade’s head and calmed him a bit. “S-sorry, sir. I’m sorry.”

Dennie tightened his arm around Wade’s shoulder; dug his fingers just a little into Wade’s bicep, a dominating gesture that soothed the deep ache in Wade’s soul just a little. “I could never hate you or think that you’re stupid or horrible. You’re my sweet boy. I care about you so much.” Dennie pressed a cherishing kiss into the top of Wade’s head, and it almost made Wade burst into tears again. “Wait here, darling.”

Dennie returned a moment later with his ‘classic’ paddle, a simple, light birch wood that thudded more than it stung. Dennie sat on the middle cushion and crooked his finger for Wade to drape himself over Dennie’s lap. Dennie reached underneath to undo the button of Wade’s jeans, then pushed his pants and his briefs down to the middle of Wade’s thighs. Dennie rested the paddle along Wade’s bare bum and asked, again, “Sweetheart, why am I paddling you?”

“I broke Rule #2, sir.”

_Smack!_

“Very good. And how did you break Rule #2?”

“I… I made things up in my head that you didn’t say.”

_Smack!_

“Exactly right. Why don’t I want you to do that?”

“It makes me anxious, sir.”

_Smack!_

“Did I say you were stupid?”

“No, sir!”

_Smack!_

“Do I think you’re stupid?”

 _Maybe you should…?_ “I don’t know, sir.”

No smack. Dennie rubbed the wood across Wade’s burning butt and hummed. “Come now, darling. You know that’s not the right answer. I just told you what I think about this issue.”

“You don’t… you don’t think I’m stupid.” _But why the fuck don’t you?_

_Smack!_

“Did I say I wanted you to go home?”

“No, sir.”

_Smack!_

“Then do I want you to go home?”

“No, sir!”

_Smack._

“Did I say I was fed up with you?”

“You didn’t say that, sir!”

_Smack!_

“So am I fed up with you?”

 _You should be. I haven’t told you why but you should be._ “N-no, sir.”

_Smack!_

Dennie stopped lecturing at that point and began to use the paddle to cover Wade’s ass in an even bloom. It wasn’t even a very hard paddling in the physical sense, but it was the most excruciating punishment Wade had felt by Dennie’s hand—nothing felt right. Dennie was punishing him, but he didn’t know what he should really be punishing Wade for. He didn’t understand that Wade had broken other Rules tonight. He didn’t know that Wade had utterly failed at showing he could be a fun, interesting boy worth keeping longer than eight months. The light, happy feelings that usually accompanied a spanking were completely absent. It just kind of hurt.

But at least he’d gotten the punishment he’d set out for, after all.

***

Another week passed, and Wade made no natural mistakes. But every waking moment he harbored the guilt from the lies and secrets he was keeping from Dennie; the disgrace from having purposefully broken so many Rules already without telling Dennie; the hopelessness from his unconquerable reservations about fulfilling his responsibilities. And the overpowering realization that he might not, in the end, be capable of striking the right balance.

Well aware that he was falling behind schedule again (how could he possibly put himself through this twice a week? How could any boy do this without sicking up each time?), Wade began planning his next disobedience. He’d thought this one through ahead of time—no more spur of the moment attempts to be cheeky.

On Saturday night, Wade came to Frau Lick and took his normal seat on Dennie’s barstool; he set the _‘Dennie’s Wade’_ placard on the bar in front of him and studied it, as usual. _I’m just doing what I have to do to keep things fresh_ , Wade promised the placard. _To make sure I stay Dennie’s Wade forever._

“Hello there, beautiful.”

“Hi, Dennie,” Wade said back, allowing Dennie to cup his face and draw him across the bar for a welcome kiss. Wade sank into it, trying to show with his mouth how much Dennie meant to him. Trying to preemptively apologize for how horrible he’d have to be tonight.

Dennie’s intense eyes sparkled with arousal when they broke apart. “That was quite the kiss, little one. What do I have to do to get you to come to my place tonight?”

“Just kiss me again and I’ll do anything you want,” Wade bantered back. And then he realized how bold he’d been and he blushed, furiously. He wasn’t much of a banterer.

“Oh ho ho.” Then Dennie did kiss him again, even deeper than the first one. Dennie didn’t seem to mind the banter; he even seemed pleased by it. For a brief second Wade lost himself in Dennie’s mouth, yielded to Dennie’s irrefutable authority, forgot about all his stupid problems and anxieties and responsibilities and just let himself be Dennie’s.

But then Dennie broke his mouth away, just far enough so that he could say, “In that case, dear one, go spend some time with your friends so that I can have you all to myself later on.”

Good mood annihilated. This was the trigger for his calculated insubordination. “Or, ah… we could just keep kissing,” Wade tried.

“Nice try.” Dennie stepped back from the counter and far out of the reach of Wade’s lips. “Go on over to The Kids’ table for a half hour, dear. Just to say hi. Jenna’s over there, and Jarahn, and a few others.”

Well Jarahn was the last fucking person Wade wanted to see, ever again, so it wasn’t quite as hard to brat as Wade had thought it would be. “I don’t want to.”

Dennie frowned, his bushy eyebrows crinkling. “Did I ask if you wanted to?”

Wade shrugged, feigning nonchalance. _Give in, Wade! Give in!_

“Wade. Sweetheart. This doesn’t have to be a battle every time. I know you’re introverted, but you still need to keep up with your friends.”

“They’re not my friends!” Wade shot back. “And it’s only a battle because you’re being unreasonable! I should be able to come to a bar and have a quiet drink by myself if I want to!”

Dennie’s eyes further darkened as he leaned back over the bar and threaded his fingers through Wade’s hair; an obvious threat. “Wade. I’m not asking you. I’m telling you. Rule #1.”

Wade gulped as he faced the crossroads. _What the hell are you doing? Just say yes! You_ want _to say yes! You love saying yes!_ But he stood his ground—for their future. “I-I won’t do it. I don’t want to talk to them tonight.”

The look on Dennie’s face was horrible: somewhere between anger, frustration, and impatience. The kind of look that appealed to Wade’s deepest submissive instinct and made it beg, _Please, Wade, just do what he wants so that he’ll keep caring about us!_ No. Must wrestle those thoughts into submission. Strike the balance; fulfill the responsibility.

Dennie let go of Wade and crossed his arms in a way that Wade would normally have found quite intimidating and sexy, but which served tonight only to deepen his shame and inadequacy. “Alright, little boy,” he said in a stern voice. “If that’s how you want this night to go, then that’s how this night will go. You can sit there quietly. Don’t leave that stool and don’t make a sound. I’ve already taken my lunch so you’ll have to wait ‘til I’m off my shift for your punishment.” Then Dennie went to the other end of the bar to fill a drink order and promptly sparked up a conversation with a Dom on the other end of the bar.

Wade sat in perfect quiet, but it wasn’t the same calm silence that he normally associated with Dennie’s barstool. Nothing about this felt right. This stool was supposed to be his safe place; his place where he could be confident in himself and in the knowledge that he obeyed Dennie’s orders, that he lived under Dennie’s Rules, that he was Dennie’s Wade. Now, only his own failures and deficiencies remained. He couldn’t do this; he couldn’t be an interesting boy. Every time he tried, he just made everything so much worse.

Knowing he was being even more disobedient, but not quite able to work himself up to care, Wade slipped off the stool and hobbled down the hallway into the men’s bathroom. He locked himself in the furthest stall and sank onto the closed toilet seat. Defeated, staring at his shaking hands, heat blooming behind his eyes.

He laid his head in his hands and wept.

He’d been desolately crying for a minute or so when the door to the men’s room squeaked open. Wade hurriedly stoppered his tears and waited for the occupant to finish their business and leave. Light footsteps skittered across the tiles, echoing throughout the room; stopping right in front of Wade’s stall…?

“Hey, Wade? Are you okay?”

Wade jumped to his feet and opened door just an inch to see if his ears were deceiving him. They weren’t. Harrison-but-call-me-Harry, Dennie’s handsome and extroverted ex, was standing on the other side of the door, his fist raised as if to knock. He was wearing a bright pink tank top that matched pleasantly with his dusky skin and a pair of very tight, very ripped blue jeans.

“Harry, what are you doing here?” Wade asked, trying to keep his voice together and hoping his eyes didn’t look too bloodshot. He’d never talked to Harry one-on-one—not once, ever. The closest they’d gotten to direct communication was that one time a few years back when they’d made eye contact and awkwardly waved at each other across the bar. (And then Harry may or may not have called Wade a slut, depending on how good Wade was at reading lips.)

Harry shrugged, looking a little hesitant—not a common expression for the confident, successful graphic designer. He scratched his temple a little awkwardly; Wade noticed a shiny diamond on his ring finger. “I was at The Kids’ table, and I saw you and Dennie arguing. And then I saw you come in here, so I followed, and I could hear you… crying… from outside the door. I wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

Something about Harry’s unexpected compassion struck a chord, and Wade’s tears began leaking like a fountain all over again. “S-sorry—sorry,” he tried, but he couldn’t stop.

Harry didn’t hesitate. He stepped forward and wrapped two lean arms around Wade’s shoulders, drawing Wade into a strange, unfamiliar embrace. Wade’s body didn’t much seem to care who was hugging him, though; it wrapped Wade’s arms around Harry’s back and cried all the harder, somehow understanding that it was being comforted even if Wade himself couldn’t quite grasp it.

“Oh girl, do I need to punch Dennis in the face for you?”

“N-no,” Wade sniffled, chuckling a tiny bit. “It’s n-not him. It’s me.”

“A sweet thing like you? I don’t believe it for a second.”

“It’s true,” Wade responded despondently. “I’m totally failing at my responsibility as a boy.” ( _No, I’m not a… oh, who am I kidding?_ )

“Uh… your, what?”

“My…” Wade stepped back a bit. How come he hadn’t thought of this before? Jarahn wasn’t the only boy at Frau Lick—Harry was a boy too! And one who’d even had Dennie as a Daddy before! “Well, you know, my responsibility to strike the balance between being too obedient and not obedient enough. I can’t quite figure it out without pissing Dennie off. How… how do you do it with Jasper?”

“Girl, I ain’t got no clue what you’re talking about. What ‘balance’? What ‘responsibility’?”

A sudden horrible suspicion was overcoming him. Why wasn’t Harry, an experienced boy, familiar with this?

“What the ever-living fuck has that man been telling you?” Harry continued. “I think I do need to punch him.”

“No, no, Dennie didn’t tell me that,” Wade clarified. “Jarahn told me about it.”

Harry raised one well-lined eyebrow. “…Jarahn? That weird newbie? What the hell has _he_ been telling you?”

“Just… that like… Dennie and I have been together eight months now, or like nine now I guess, and he said… he said Dennie would start getting bored of me if I didn’t, like. Disobey on purpose sometimes.”

Harry stared, gobsmacked and silent. Then he burst into laughter—huge, bellowing laughter, so hard that he doubled over with his arms wrapped around his torso like a cartoon character. “Dennis—bored of—oh dear Lord in heaven! Wadie-poo. Dennis Henderson is the strictest Top who’s ever Topped. He has no tolerance—and I mean, absolutely _zero tolerance_ —for bratty behavior like that. That man is a fucking Nazi. Good God girl, why do you think he broke up with me? It certainly wasn’t my looks. It was because,” and Harry lowered the timbre of his voice into a poor impression of Dennie, “‘Boy, you don’t take my authority seriously enough.’”

“But, Jarahn said that all Daddies—”

Harry wagged his index finger. “Nuh-uh. Ain’t no ‘Jarahn says’ about nothing. He’s a know-it-all little bitch who has no idea what he’s talking about.” At Wade’s appalled expression, Harry added, “It’s true! When you’ve worked with as many overconfident white men as I have, you learn to spot that bullshit mansplaining thing rather quickly. Did you know he tried to tell me that this shirt and these shoes don’t go together? Honey, if I’m wearing them, they go together!”

That shocked a laugh out of Wade.

“But seriously, Wade. I don’t know exactly what he told you, but no two Daddies are the same. Every Daddy is different and has his own thing going on. Including Dennis, who I’ll remind you, is a totally dictatorial, overbearing Nazi.”

Wade kind of liked that about Dennie, though.

“So… I don’t need to disobey Dennie on purpose sometimes to keep him interested in me? I can just yield to him like I want to?” Wade asked tentatively.

Harry threw up his hands with an all-suffering sort of grin. “I’ll never understand you obedient bitches, but yeah, girl. You can just do what he tells you. He likes that. You like that. God knows I don’t get it at all! But you do you. Don’t let anything that stupid cunt told you interfere with your happiness.”

For the first time since the picnic, it finally clicked just how badly Wade had fallen back into his early patterns these past few weeks. “Oh God. I’ve really broken a ton of his Rules,” Wade realized suddenly. “Like. So many of them. Maybe all of them? Christ. I made up my own rules. I listened to other people’s rules. I didn’t follow _his_ Rules. I lied and hid things and didn’t ask him to clarify anything. I basically just acted like our Rules didn’t matter at all. Oh God, he’s going to be really mad when he finds out about what I did. He might even…” The thought was too terrible to bear.

Harry wrapped Wade back up in his wiry embrace, and though it didn’t provide the same type of warmth and assurance as a hug from Dennie, it still helped. “Honey, that man is besotted with you. Anyone can spot it a mile away. I don’t think there’s much you could do to change that, unfortunately for you.”

Before Wade had a chance to rebut Harry’s calm assuredness, the bathroom door slammed open with a bang. There was Dennie, temper blazing, looking like a mountain man with his scraggly beard and mildly crazed expression. “Get the fuck off of him.”

Wade scrambled away from Harry as fast as he could and scurried to Dennie’s side, spewing apologies. “I’m sorry—I didn’t know—Daddy, I’m sorry—”

Then Wade gasped once he realized what he said, and Dennie looked at him with a wild, vehement gleam in his eyes, and Wade began trying to backpedal but words weren’t really coming out, just distorted little sounds. But then Dennie crushed Wade into a pulverizing hug. “Dearest, don’t be sorry. I was talking to _him_.” Dennie emphasized that by drawing Wade behind him and glaring at Harry in a way that would probably have made Wade piss his pants.

But Harry seemed to take it with excellent humor. “Woah there cowboy,” Harry said with a laugh, lifting up both hands in a gesture of peace. “I wasn’t doing anything to your boy.”

“You expect me to believe that? I walk in here and find you two alone in the bathroom, him crying, with you all over him—”

“No, Dennie, he was helping me,” Wade mumbled into Dennie’s back. “I… I need to talk to you about something. Harry helped me see that.”

Dennie’s shoulders relaxed slightly, but he still loomed protectively between them like a guard dog. Wade had seen glimpses of Dennie’s possessive attitude before, but nothing at all like this. “If he hurt you—”

“He didn’t,” Wade soothed, drawing a hand up and down Dennie’s spine. Then he stepped out from behind Dennie and, looking Harry right in the eye, said, “Harry, thank you for looking out for me.”

“Anytime. And, ah…” Harry rubbed an embarrassed hand behind the back of his head. “I know I haven’t always been that welcoming to you. But you’re one of The Kids. I wanted to make sure you know that.”

Wade nodded and tried to say something in response, but he was a bit too choked up and touched to speak. Harry waved and sidestepped them, leaving him and Dennie alone.

It was time to face the music. Wade steeled himself and looked up into Dennie’s eyes, prepared for something—anger, frustration, annoyance at being disobeyed—but instead, a furiously aroused Dennie pushed Wade up against the wall between the two sinks, trapping him on all sides, and smothered him with a violent, frantic kiss, though it was less like a kiss and more like a brand, savage and unrestrained and concussing Wade’s lips swollen and tender. Wade let himself be swept away on a sea of surrender, ceding his soul to Dennie’s tongue. Powerful, bruising jabs that stamped his mark into Wade’s mouth and onto his heart. “You’re mine,” Dennie breathed into him. “You’re my boy.”

“I-I’m yours,” Wade tearfully conceded. He _shouldn’t_ be a boy. But he _wanted_ to be. He wanted to be Dennie’s boy no matter how selfish that made him. “If… if that’s okay,” he couldn’t help but add.

Dennie gave that qualifier the treatment it deserved by clobbering Wade’s bare neck with his teeth and sucking, hard, leaving little mangled marks of red and purple. Wade gasped and he bowed, bent, collapsed under Dennie’s might. “Dennie,” Wade choked out as Dennie mapped a constellation of hickeys onto his shoulder. “I fucked up so bad. I broke like every Rule.”

Dennie compressed Wade even more vigorously against the wall, shoving a despotic kneecap in between Wade’s legs. “You about to tell me something about your unhappy mood these past couple of weeks?” Dennie murmured into Wade’s collarbone.

“I was so stupid,” Wade breathed. Dennie nipped his neck in retribution. “No, Dennie, I was. Oh God,” Wade moaned as Dennie sucked a particularly harsh contusion into his throat. His hips undulated on Dennie’s knee—Dennie hoisted one of Wade’s legs up around his waist and pressed forward harder, almost painfully, proprietorially.

“Do you still want to follow my orders?” Dennie growled into Wade’s skin. He shoved his erection against Wade’s hip and rutted like a piston, frotting recklessly and ferally. “Do you still want to live under my Rules?”

And Wade finally gave in.

“Daddy, please, please let me keep having your Rules, I’m so sorry—”

Dennie came, and Wade wasn’t too far behind. They soiled their boxers like they were teenagers. Dennie let Wade’s leg go and leaned against him, breathing heavily. Wade clung and tried to bring his rapid heartbeat somewhat under control.

“Then I think you need to tell me what happened, darling,” Dennie finally concluded.

“Dennie. Oh God.” The rush of arousal now a distant memory, all the shame came flooding back. “I made a really big mistake. Or like, a few dozen huge, awful mistakes.” Wade bit his lip and looked up into Dennie’s eyes. “You might not forgive me.”

“Did I or did I not just tell you that you’re mine? Whatever it is you did, dear, it’s not going to make me love you less.”

Wade had never been more grateful for Rule #3 than at that very moment, because without it, he’d never have believed that was true. But even with the abiding, certain knowledge that Dennie was telling the truth, Wade still had to ask, “You… love me?”

“Sure as sugar, sugar.”

Wade was still sort of crying, but he also sort of laughed, and he dove forward to clasp his arms around the base of Dennie’s neck, holding on for dear life. “Can we go home, please?”

***

Despite their idealistic intentions, they couldn’t leave the bar that instant. They cleaned themselves up as best as possible, and then Dennie had to finish out his shift and close up, so he planted Wade on his barstool with a stern look. “Don’t go running off again,” he ordered gruffly. “I was worried.”

“I’m sorry,” Wade said sincerely. “I won’t disobey you again.”

Dennie chuckled and affectionately chuffed Wade’s chin. “We’ll see about that, brat.” Wade loosely smiled and leaned his head on his arms on the bar so that he could admire Dennie while he worked.

By the time Dennie closed the bar and they’d made it back to Dennie’s house, all Wade’s nerves had jolted back to life at the prospect of confessing to the breadth of his misconduct since the picnic. Dennie wasted no time ushering them to the living room, seating himself on the couch and then parking Wade’s butt on the coffee table, maneuvering Wade’s legs between his knees and arresting Wade’s wrists in his powerful grip. It was a humbling position, somehow, that highlighted for Wade their power imbalance, and yet despite that—or rather, because of that—Wade felt secure and enveloped.

“I guess I should start at the beginning,” Wade mumbled. The story began haltingly, but Wade gained more confidence as he continued because Dennie held his gaze, never once interrupting or acting impatient or judging Wade for his countless horrible decisions. Wade told Dennie about the picnic, and the seeds of doubt that Jarahn had planted in his mind, and all his unsuccessful attempts to disobey on purpose.

“How did it feel, sweetheart, to disobey me like that?”

Wade swallowed, and though he wanted to avert his eyes, he didn’t look away. “It felt horrible, sir. I hated every second of it. Every inch of me was begging just to give in.”

“Do you remember what I told you, about why I want you to obey my Rules?”

“You told me that it pleases you when I obey you because it makes me less anxious.”

“That, _and_ , because it makes you _happy_.” Dennie grasped his chin firmly. Not harshly, but with some intention. “You thrive on obedience, my dear. I’ve known that about you since the first night I took you home. Avoiding this kind of situation—you trying to gauge on your own, without my input, how to please me—is exactly why I implemented the Rules in the first place. You please me by following the Rules to the letter without questioning them. That way you never have to balance competing interests or make judgment calls or guess what your next move _should_ be.”

“Jarahn said it was a boy’s responsibility to strike that balance,” Wade mumbled back.

“Is Jarahn in charge of telling you what your responsibilities are?”

“No. You are,” Wade responded back with a little more confidence. But niggling doubts remained. “But why isn’t it selfish of me? You make all these Rules and you say they’re all about making me happy. And when I follow them I feel so free. But I’m not giving you anything back. If I just obey all the time and never get in trouble, then like, what am I doing for you?”

Dennie leaned back into the sofa, his hand on his own chin, considering. It took him a minute before he spoke. “Do you remember when you told me that you keep your copy of the Rules in your nightstand, and that every night you review them and think about your day to make sure you didn’t break any? You said something then—that you like to think about all the things you did that day and remember how when you did all of them, I was in charge of you, even though I wasn’t there.

“That’s what I get out of this, Wade. Your full submission to me. It’s the headiest feeling in the world. I could never get bored of this—of knowing that when you’re at work, or when you’re at your apartment, or when you’re at the bar, or wherever the fuck you are, you’re answerable to me and my Rules. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, you do what I tell you to do. I don’t have to spank you or stick a bar of soap in your mouth to get a rush from that. The very fact that you obey me with such ardor is what thrills me most about our relationship.”

“So…it’s okay for me to give in,” Wade summarized and restated, just to be sure. “That’s all you want. Just for me to yield myself to you completely.”

Dennie leaned forward again with a hearty laugh, resting his hands on Wade’s thighs. “You say that like it’s no big deal. ‘Oh, that’s all you need—my total and complete surrender. I’ll pick up your dry cleaning on the way too.’”

Wade laughed too, clutching Dennie’s hands a little spastically. “The thing is, it was harder not to,” Wade admitted. “I had to like, suppress my instincts. I like obeying you more than anything. Even when I gripe a bit about your more sadistic orders”—Dennie raised his eyebrow and Wade blushed, but kept going—“I still always want to comply. I know, deep down, I’d rather die than say no. I wanted to obey you so badly tonight, Dennie. I’m so sorry I refused to follow your order. It was the worst I’d ever felt sitting on that barstool, and I’ve had some pretty shitty nights there before you made me yours.”

Dennie cupped Wade’s cheek with his hand and drew him in for a soft kiss; his fingers dropped to Wade’s neck and toyed with the bruises Dennie’s lips had affixed there some hours before. Dennie pressed his fingers into the purpling contusions, and it hurt. The gesture was totalitarian and just a little mean. A certain calm settled over Wade.

“Thank you for telling me, my dearest,” Dennie said, loosely keeping his fingers around Wade’s throat. “Is there anything left that I need to know?”

Wade shook his head.

“Alright. I’m proud of you for opening up to me with all of this, though certainly not thrilled that you experienced such great sorrow by keeping this bottled up inside for so long. This won’t be an easy punishment, you realize. Not when you’ve broken, by my count, Rules #1-8—which is to say, all of them—each at least once, over the course of a three-week-long period.”

Wade nodded his head and gulped; his Adam’s apple pressed up against Dennie’s thumb. “Well, technically you already punished me for the only Rule #5 violation,” Wade proffered hesitantly.

“That’s true. So we don’t need to open up yet another new bar of soap. Thank God, because we’re running out of places to put it all. But your ass is burnt fucking toast for the rest, my love.”

Dennie dragged Wade up to his feet by his hair, which just seemed par for the course at this point, and he towed Wade around the back of the couch, admonishing him to rest his hands on the back and stick out his butt. Dennie pulled Wade’s pants and boxers to his ankles, hobbling him like a small child. “This is going to be a multi-parter,” Dennie warned.

He returned a moment later with a paddle Wade hadn’t seen yet. It was bright pink—there was _glitter_ in the plastic—and cut out of the middle was a word. A word that sent a hot bolt of shame through Wade when he applied it to his own actions.

“Yes, my dearest. This was a gag gift; I never actually planned on using it. But something about my sweet, obedient boy thinking he needed to purposefully disobey me in order to keep me interested in him called this particular paddle to mind.” Dennie dragged the paddle along Wade’s bare backside, making him shiver. “But before I start—does this word make you feel anything even marginally like the other words on your Limits list do?”

Wade shook his head emphatically. ‘Brat’ wasn’t like that.

“Thank you for telling me. You’re not a brat, no matter how much you thought you were supposed to act like one. And I don’t want you to be one. There’s never any need, my dearest, to ‘brat on purpose’ to keep me interested in you. It’s that perfect obedience that comes so naturally to you that I love. So let this be a reminder that I will never tolerate or accept ‘purposeful disobedience’ from you.”

Dennie began the paddling unceremoniously after that. It was quite different from a normal paddling—Dennie administered relatively fewer strokes, but he delivered each one at full strength, and he placed each wallop on the exact same spot so that the word ‘brat’ would get branded into Wade’s skin, tawny letters outlined with mottling bruises. The plastic paddle was just a little flexible, and it stung something fierce. Wade cried out with each forceful strike.

When Dennie finished embossing Wade’s ass, he dropped the paddle onto the couch and grabbed each of Wade’s flaming cheeks in a hand, groping the tender skin and pushing and prying each round sphere apart and together in a smothering demonstration of ownership. “This is mine,” Dennie said gruffly. “You and your ass are answerable to me and my Rules, 24/7. And under my Rules, there will be no bratting on purpose. No exceptions. Do you understand me?”

There was nothing Wade could say back to that except, “Yes sir!” and, inexplicably, “Thank you!” He’d never be able to adequately describe to anyone else why he was so grateful he’d received this strange, somewhat demeaning punishment that somehow perfectly hammered home how utterly misguided Wade’s insecurities about his role in their relationship had been.

Dennie stepped back. “Now for Part Two.” Wade heard the sound of Dennie unbuckling his belt, and he swiveled his head wildly to watch. It was the same belt Dennie had used last time. Dennie tucked the buckle into his palm and doubled the belt over, and though Wade had felt that belt before and knew it wasn’t too bad—and that Dennie would never use the buckle—the sight of it still sent a jolt of true fear down Wade’s spine. He quickly turned back to the couch.

Dennie came up behind Wade and laid the strap across the back of Wade’s thighs, directly underneath Wade’s new ‘brat’ logo. “You spent three weeks hiding important information from me, during which you’d convinced yourself that you were fulfilling a responsibility that I never directed or even came close to implying that you needed to fulfill. In the process of playing your own taskmaster, you disobeyed my direct orders and broke several of my Rules. You lied to me and kept me in the dark about something that was causing you immense emotional pain—something I could have fixed in a second by dispelling all the misinformation you received, if you had just come to me and talked to me about it openly.

“Even worse, my dear, you allowed me to paddle you last week without telling me that it made you sad and lonely since you felt I was hitting you for the wrong reasons. And two weeks ago you let me stick a bar of soap in your mouth to cleanse you of a resurgent habit that hadn’t actually resurged at all, and in the process, you failed to inform me that instead of comforting you, everything I said to you that night only made you feel worse. In short, you permitted me to hurt you, and that is unacceptable. That is an #8b violation and I will not tolerate it. My discipline is about keeping you safe and helping you continue to feel secure in your trust of me. If a punishment doesn’t ‘feel right,’ for any reason or no reason at all, you use your safeword—end of story. I’m heartbroken, my love, that I used violence on you in an unproductive and unhealthy way, and I am going to do what it takes to make sure that never happens again.”

Wade was starting to feel like his heart was breaking too. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered, unable to come up with anything more original or worthwhile to add.

“I know you’re sorry. I am too. We’re in this together—this isn’t your cross to bear alone. I’m going to belt you Wade, and it’s not going to feel good, because I’m determined to convince you that you can trust me and my Rules never to let you fail or go it alone. Do you still consent?”

Wade turned his head to look at Dennie again; did he really need to ask? “Of course, sir. But can… can I make a request?”

“Please.”

“Can we do it the other way?”

Dennie stroked his free hand up and down Wade’s flank. “Do you mean, can I hold you in my lap like I held you last time?”

Wade’s head sprung back towards the front, embarrassed. “Sorry. I’m acting so spoiled.”

Dennie nudged Wade up to a standing position, and then jerked Wade’s face up with a sharp tug to his curls. “Wade. If there was just one thing I could make you believe, it would be that your wants and needs are a priority to me. C’mon; it will be easiest if we do this on the floor.” Dennie sat up against the wall and spread his legs wide, tossing a cushion in between and beckoning Wade to kneel. “I don’t want to hit you on the part I just paddled, so you’ll have to press up flat against me, dearest, and hold your bum in—otherwise I won’t be able to see your thighs.”

Wade clambered in between Dennie’s legs and leveled against Dennie so they were front-to-front; in this position, his head came to a slightly greater height than Dennie’s. He wrapped his arms around Dennie’s shoulders and clung while Dennie snaked an arm around the small of Wade’s back. “I love you,” Dennie said very seriously. Wade nodded back and gritted his teeth.

The belting was not like the brat paddling: it seemed to go on, and on, and on, and the back of his thighs was a far more sensitive spot than the meat of his butt where he’d been belted last time. Sometimes Wade lost control and arched his back or shifted his stance, and when that happened Dennie stopped and soothed him until he resumed the original position that would let Dennie safely view his target. But when Wade broke into gasping sobs, Dennie didn’t slow down at all—if anything, it seemed Wade’s tears spurred Dennie to hit harder, as if they signaled to Dennie that he needed to further solidify his commitment to hold Wade accountable, all hours of every day, to his Rules.

Things got real floaty as time went on. His nose was clogged with snot but he didn’t have many tears left to cry. Wade fell sort of limp against Dennie’s body, but Dennie didn’t stop, and the friction of the belt on his thighs was hot, and Wade could feel each smack’s distinct sharpness but somehow also all the sensations mixed and fused into a fuzzy mass, Dennie in front, belt behind, but the belt was an extension of Dennie so in fact Dennie’s warmth surrounded him on every side and hemmed him in.

Confidence abruptly overcame him. Everything about this punishment felt like love; Wade was exactly where he wanted to be. And in response to the overwhelming, sudden emotion that had taken over, Wade slurred out the only word that felt right: “Daddy!”

Dennie squeezed Wade tight with his free arm, so tight Wade thought he might burst. “My boy,” Dennie growled back, landing a few more solid cracks with the belt that saturated Wade’s very skin and burrowed beneath, impressing Dennie’s love into his nerves and bones and capillaries.

And then it was over. But Wade only knew because Dennie’s spanking arm came up around him and joined with Dennie’s other arm to cage him in even closer. Wade’s thighs were in fact such a burning, sensitized mess, that Wade hadn’t really been feeling any distinct strike by the end. Wade sagged and slid, just far enough to bury his head into the crook of Dennie’s shoulder. One of Dennie’s large hands spanned the back of Wade’s head and clung, a little desperately, to Wade’s scalp.

Time and space became abstract concepts. They huddled on the floor for an hour, or maybe just a minute, and then apparently Dennie helped Wade upstairs to their bedroom because then Wade was lain on top of a soft flannel sheet, and then everything smelled like eucalyptus, and everything was hazy and his head was full of floss. Then Wade got warmer. A light heat covered his whole body, and a crisp, iron-hot bar laid across his shoulders. Oh. Dennie’s arm.

***

Wade’s eyes snapped open at approximately noon. He was lying on his stomach in Dennie’s bed. Dennie was fast asleep, sprawled on his back with his limbs helter-skelter and the blanket half thrown off. Wade lied there for a moment just watching Dennie’s chest rise and fall. The dark, coarse hairs of his torso and stomach, which contrasted so handsomely with his light skin, quivered from the breeze of the air conditioner.

As much as Wade would have liked to lie there watching Dennie forever, his bladder had other ideas. Wade awkwardly shuffled to the edge of the bed and slid off by dropping his knees to the floor, and then he stood up and used the bed to keep his balance. Holy mother of God. Everything hurt—his ass and thighs most urgently, but his whole body felt like it had been through the ringer. His arms quaked. His legs were shaky. His brain was like a cotton puff suffused in sugar water.

Wade shuffled to the bathroom to do his business. Wade admired Dennie’s hickeys in the mirror for a moment before turning around to take a good look at his butt. It was marbled. Wade laughed to see that the ‘brat’ paddle had actually worked. The word was soft around the edges and the burst blood vessels hadn’t reined in their snaking lines, but there were enough distinct edges that the word ‘BRAT’ was plainly legible. His thighs were a different story. They were totally wrecked—bars of black and blue and red bruises extended from directly underneath the swell of his butt all the way down to just a few inches above his knee.

Wade felt something a little like pride. These were Dennie’s marks of 24/7 ownership that he bore in such a visible, tangible way.

He limped a little back to the bedroom and collapsed again onto his stomach, causing Dennie to stir. Dennie rolled over onto his front, mumbling some gibberish, and threw his arm over Wade’s shoulders. Still asleep, Dennie snuffled out some more nonsense. Then his arm drifted downwards and he squeezed Wade’s butt.

 _That motherfucking hurts!_ “Ahh!” Wade gasped loudly. Dennie startled awake and quickly wrenched his hand away from Wade’s aching ass.

“Sorry, my love,” he said, stroking his fingers through Wade’s hair in apology. “I was dreaming about you.”

“It’s okay,” Wade said quietly back.

“How are you feeling, dear? Does it hurt terribly?”

Wade considered that for a moment. “It hurts wonderfully,” he decided.

They stayed in bed all day. At one point Dennie got up to order takeout and bring Wade more water and more bruise cream. Later in the day, without moving from his stomach, Wade snuggled between Dennie’s thighs and gave him a long, gentle blowjob.

But at 5:45, Dennie herded Wade out of bed. Dennie had to be at work by 6:30, and Wade was coming with him.

Parts Three and Four of his punishment commenced that night. Part Three was a set of ‘never-ending’ lines: for two hours a night, every night that week, Wade was to copy his two new Rules, over and over, into a blank spiral notebook that Dennie had pulled out of a drawer. Wade would come to Frau Lick every night that Dennie was there to work on them, and on Thursday and Friday, Wade could do them at Dennie’s kitchen table instead. “And if you run out of space, love, I’ve got more notebooks.”

And then there was Part Four.

After completing his first two hours of lines, Wade tucked away his notebook and, with just a bare plaintive look at Dennie’s stern face, hobbled over to The Kids’ table. Only Jenna and Carly were there, and they looked deep in conversation. It was exactly the kind of social situation that Wade would never have willingly inserted himself into.

Wade gingerly took the seat next to Jenna, not managing to hide his wince. “Hi,” he mumbled when they both looked over at him.

“Wade! Are you okay?” Carly asked, sounding worried.

“I’m fine. I’m fine. I just got in trouble.”

Jenna’s eyes sharpened at that. “Wade. I thought you said you didn’t like impact play.”

Wade shook his head with a little smile, touched that both of them seemed concerned about him. “It’s… hard to explain. I don’t. But. I do? But only for discipline, I mean.” Wade figured this would be boring for them, so he tried to change the subject to Carly’s new haircut, but they didn’t let him.

“What happened then? How’d you get in trouble?” Carly asked with unbridled curiosity.

“Its, uh… an embarrassing story,” Wade tried to hedge.

“Oh believe you me. I’ve got embarrassing stories in reams,” Jenna grinned. “And I’ve told you plenty of mine. C’mon. Spill.”

Wade was viscerally reminded of the time Jenna had described to a table of at least eight Kids, in great detail, about accidentally peeing on Lia when she whipped Jenna’s pussy.

“Well, uh. I broke some Rules…”

Wade told a condensed version of what had happened, leaving out some of the more intimate details and embellishing some of the funnier parts. He was gratified that Jenna and Carly not only seemed engaged while he was speaking, but that they also both agreed with Harry that Jarahn’s ‘advice’ had been inappropriate.

“He had no right to act like he knew how to make your Daddy happy,” Jenna declared. “What a prick.”

Wade shook his head. “I mean, sort of. But uh, I talked to Dennie about this a bit. He thinks Jarahn might just be a little insecure? And like, um. He says maybe something bad happened to Jarahn in New York. One of the other Doms said so.”

Wade left out the other bit that Dennie had told him: that Jarahn _looked up_ to Wade. Wade had immediately denied it, but Dennie had said, from Jarahn’s perspective, Wade and Harry were the ‘senior boys’ at Frau Lick. Both of them were settled in long-term, established relationships, which Jarahn envied but admired all the same, and Dennie thought Jarahn was protective of their happiness, too, in his own weird, warped way.

“Protective?” Wade had asked. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well,” Dennie had responded, “He likes you. He sees you like a big brother. He was hurt in the past, so I think he may have been trying to give you ‘advice’ on how to avoid the same hurt he suffered. Of course, his execution was… less-than stellar. But in his own way, he was trying to keep you safe.

“All that said, don’t you dare listen to him again, sweetheart, or you’ll be sorry.”

Wade still wasn’t sure what to think about the possibility that Jarahn thought Wade was a positive role model (Jarahn always came across as confident—overconfident, really—so Wade didn’t know why he’d think Wade was at all worth emulating) so he didn’t mention it to Carly and Jenna.

Carly hmmed. “I guess that gives some more context for why he acted like that. But still, there’s an etiquette to these things.”

Wade shrugged. He didn’t really want to talk about Jarahn anymore. “So, well, anyways. It’s a four-part punishment. I got paddled and belted. And I have lines.”

“Wait, paddled _and_ belted?” Jenna remarked. “That seems a little extreme.”

“Oh, it was sort of a special paddling,” Wade clarified.

At Jenna and Carly’s expectant looks, Wade elaborated, his face heating in an embarrassed blush. He dropped his voice to a near-whisper. “The paddle, like. Um. Had a word. And it, uh. Put the word. On me.”

“OH MY GOD!” they both squealed at once. Carly, always a bit overfamiliar, leaned out of her seat to look at Wade’s clothed ass. “Can I see?” Carly asked, at the same time as Jenna loudly asked, “What’s it say?”

“No, you can’t see!” Wade snapped back, his hands involuntarily reaching down to cover the seat of his pants. “And no. I’m not telling either of you what it says. This is too embarrassing.”

Both of them kept laughing, though it didn’t feel mean-spirited at all. “I always knew you were a kinky little fuck,” Carly tittered. Wade’s glare did nothing to dispel either of their grins. “Okay, okay. So you got paddled. You got belted. You got lines. What was Part Four?”

Wade sucked in a deep breath and exhaled. “Um. This.” At their blank stares, he added, “Sitting with you.”

Jenna put a hand over her chest. “From the bottom of my heart: ouch.”

“No, uh, listen,” Wade blurted. “The thing is. I’m not so good at talking to people. I’m an introvert, and I don’t really have any friends. To be honest, every time I’ve come over here, it’s been because he’s ordered me to.

“And when I got it in my head about the whole bratting on purpose thing, I didn’t talk to _anyone_ about it. For three weeks straight, I bottled all my dark feelings up inside. Finally Harry, of all people, noticed something was wrong and helped me figure out I needed to talk to Dennie about it.

“And to be honest, I kind of thought Harry hated me. But it turns out he thinks I’m one of The Kids, so he actually helped me. And Dennie said, ‘Kid, you are one of The Kids.’ And like,” Wade stumbled a bit over his words, not sure how to phrase these tough feelings. “I guess he understands that I need to feel like I have somewhere I belong. And that I need a support system of people I can talk to, even if I’m not so good at seeking it out myself, because sometimes, he says, the best way to figure out a problem is to get an outside perspective on it. Like what Harry did for me.

“So. I, uh. That’s why he’s ‘making’ me talk to you, for an hour each night,” Wade concluded, putting air quotes around the word ‘making.’ “I’m really bad at making friends but I really want to be your friend. If, um. If you’re interested in that, I mean.”

Carly and Jenna both stared at him blankly for a few seconds, before Jenna piped up with, “Well, shit, Wade, I thought we were already your friends!”

And that made Wade choke up a bit. Jenna laid a small, comforting hand on Wade’s shoulder and Carly smiled warmly and welcomingly. Then Carly got a mischievous glint in her eye. “So what you’re saying, Wadester, is that your Daddy has given you carte blanche permission to gossip about all the dirty details of your relationship with us, all in the spirit of getting an ‘outside perspective,’” Carly said in that shameless way of hers. “So I have tons of questions about what you guys get up to. First: does he make you drop and give him twenty whenever you talk back?”

Wade indignantly said, ‘no!’ which prompted Jenna to relate a story about a Domme she’d had in college who _had_ made her do pushups, which reminded Carly about her college roommate who’d gotten Carly interested in kink after Carly walked in on her being spanked by one of their _professors_ , which was a whole huge scandal, and Wade’s law firm was working on a sexual harassment scandal case so Wade gave them some details about it that probably violated his duty of confidentiality in some way. In the middle of that story, Dennie came up behind him and laid a hand on his shoulder, startling him.

“Dearest, it’s about 11. Do you want to stay a bit longer or go home and get some sleep before work tomorrow morning?”

Wade tilted his head back so he could look Dennie in the eyes. And a confidence arose within him, spurred by Jenna and Carly’s knowing grins and his security in Dennie’s Rules and his position as Dennie’s boy, that made him plead:

“Just ten more minutes, Daddy?”

* * *

Dennie’s Rules for Wade v4

  1. Always obey Dennie’s Rules and orders.
  2. Never obey rules or orders* that Dennie didn’t give you. 
    * *For purposes of this Rule, you may obey orders from your work supervisors as well as orders from law enforcement and emergency personnel.
  3. Never assume Dennie means something different than what Dennie said.
  4. Never lie to Dennie. (Sneakiness counts.) You may, however, state that you do not wish to talk about something.
  5. Never call Dennie “Mr. Henderson” out loud, even if you can’t always manage it in your head.
  6. Always inform Dennie by phone or in person as soon as possible* if you break a Rule and he doesn’t know about it. 
    * *“As soon as possible” means as soon as you are safe and physically able to talk to Dennie or call him. You need not tell Dennie about Rules violations in front of others. You need not tell Dennie you broke a Rule until you realize you broke it.
  7. _Wade doesn’t make the Rules!_ If you aren’t sure how to apply one of Dennie’s Rules or obey one of Dennie’s orders, always ask Dennie to clarify what he wants before you take further action.
  8. Wade’s Limits
    * Rule #8a: You are in charge of your Limits document. You may modify it at any time, and you must always keep it truthful and up-to-date. If you make a modification, notify Dennie immediately. (A text message is sufficient.)
    * Rule #8b: Always tell Dennie immediately if he breaches one of your limits, or if he makes you feel uncomfortable, sad, or angry, or if he hurts you in any other way.
  9. Never hide your emotions, wants, needs, doubts, insecurities, or fears from Dennie. 
    * For purposes of this Rule, unless a time limit from a different Rule applies, you may choose at your discretion to take up to three days to discuss any emotional concerns you have with friends or family to get a third-party perspective before bringing the issue to Dennie’s attention.
  10. No bratting on purpose!



**Author's Note:**

> Don't worry--Wade still has plenty of angst to get through re: his identification as a 'boy' and his acceptance of Dennie as his 'Daddy.' This is just the beginning for him...
> 
> I also have plans for a Jarahn one-shot at some point in the works. My naughty, arrogant little boy needs his own Daddy.


End file.
